1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication device, an address input supporting method, and an information storage medium, and more particularly to a technique for supporting (aiding) input of an address by users.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, online competitive games utilizing the Internet are attracting widespread attention. This kind of online competitive game generally uses a method by which a player wishing to play an on-line game with another player accesses a specific game server (lobby server) to invite another player to join the game and then exchanges IP addresses with the opponent to start the game, or a method by which the player directly inputs the IP address of the opponent to a game machine or the like to start the game with the opponent with that IP address.
When the player wishes to play the on-line game with a friend or previous opponent, the latter of the above two methods is more suitable. However, directly inputting an IP address is generally troublesome, especially when using a game machine provided with no input device specialized for numerical inputs, for example a ten keypad, because the numerals must be input by operating a keyboard displayed on a TV screen with a cross-shaped key or the like, i.e. the IP address must be input using a so-called software keyboard.
This inconvenience can be avoided by storing a history of IP addresses of opponents in a memory card or the like and choosing an IP address from there, so that the opponent is designated only by selecting the IP address, making it possible to quickly start the on-line game. However, an IP address maybe dynamically allocated whenever a dial-up connection, for example, is made to an Internet service provider (ISP), whereby the IP address stored in the memory card or the like is not necessarily the current IP address of the friend or previous opponent. Therefore, any method supporting input of an IP address has its limits.